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Review:

Beeezie says:Hey! So I meant to review this before now, but I failed because I am lame. *hides* I'm here now - I know the task is over, but who doesn't appreciate reviews whenever? :P

I don't think I've ever reviewed one of your stories before, so I'm going to give you fair warning now: I'm kind of the mechanics queen, so please don't take my comments to mean that you're not a good writer.

Along those lines:

There were some points where the way you worded things just felt a little awkward to me. In the first few paragraphs, you referred to witnesses to the storm a few times (all that was brave enough, very few remained, the surveyors that were left). It wasn't really clear to me whether you were talking about objects or people when you were saying that. If it was the former, I think that you ascribed too many human characteristics to them, and if it was the latter, I think that you needed more detail to establish that you were talking about people. Does that make sense?

Similarly, when you started talking about the baby trying to sleep through the storm, I felt like you were treating it as being far too self-aware, especially for an animal. Dragons don't seem to be particularly smart in the HP universe as a rule. There was just something about She had tried to sleep through the rage of the thunder in particular that felt like it didn't really fit a baby's pov for me. She had been woken up by the rage of the thunder would have fit with her age better, IMO.

I also felt like you could have included more about Delilah physically than you did. You showed her thoughts about her baby and about the humans and about the storm, but you didn't really tell us much about how she was feeling. Given that she's a beast, I would have liked to see more of that - as is, it felt a bit too much like I was reading about a human, if that makes sense. I love the choice to write from the pov of a dragon, but I wish that you'd depicted her perception of the things around her in a way that really shows how different she is in terms of how she sees the world. I'd expect her to be a lot more primal than she was, especially given how injured she was.

I'm going to stop there, though, lest I come off as hypercritical of a story I really did enjoy.

As I mentioned, I really loved the choice you made to tell this story from a dragon's pov. While I do wish that you'd gone a little deeper with the fact that she's so different from people, I do want to emphasise that I still thought you did a nice job with it. The description throughout the story definitely helped to set the mood, both in terms of the surroundings (especially with the storm) and in terms of Delilah herself. You frequently referenced her breath, her wings, etc, which meant that I never really forgot that you were talking about a dragon. It helped give your story a different tone than any other story I can think of reading on the archive, which is a terrific thing.

And this story was creative and imaginative beyond your choice to write from the pov of a dragon. There were a lot of little details about dragons that you worked in - the uses for their blood, the internal bleeding - that were really well-done, and helped to give this story a real sense of originality. I loved it.

And as far as following the prompts goes - I can understand why you decided not to include the details about Neville's wand - it definitely would have come across as out of place. The way you used the prompts you did use was terrific - the mentions all flowed into the conversation well, and the way you chose to interpret the "feature" prompts was terrific. You crafted your story around them rather than try to just squeeze them in, and it really showed.

Sorry - this is definitely on the short side of a review I'd usually leave for a chapter of this length. House Cup and all that. You're in my house, you get it. :P

Author's Response: Short side??? Oh goodness! Thank you so much for such a wonderfully detailed review!

My thoughts regarding the dragons are pretty different than others, I think. They were around for so much longer than the wizards, I just find it hard to believe that they wouldn't have done some massive mental evolving. I guess I'm a bit like Hagrid in the sense of thinking of them closer to humans than senseless beats.

I've been bothered by that storm section, also! Thank you so much for bringing it up, it has reminded me to take me editing pen out. I hate the editing pen.

I am so happy that you also see my issue with the wand. Despite me feelings on Delilah being very intelligent, there would be no way to get to Neville's wand through her naturally.

Now that this challenge is finished I think I want to edit this and will definitely include more physical descriptions! Now that my word count isn't so important ;).

Thank you so much for this lovely review. You have given me a lot to think about for the next time that this story is edited.